“I thought Abilene Christian was great in the first half. I thought we weren’t that great, and I’ll take the blame for that. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I didn’t have us ready. For it to be the home opener and to play that way is just not good. We didn’t put a lot in to Abilene Christian. We play a lot of games and they run a lot of the same things we do offensively. We went through it yesterday and didn’t put a lot of time into it today. Mentally, I want our guys to be fresh. Maybe the guys thought that I didn’t think Abilene Christian was any good by doing that and obviously I didn’t get them ready to play. That said, we finished strong and our guys played better in the second half. We played inside-out and then Jake [Layman] got going.”

On why guard Roddy Peters started:

“…Roddy [Peters] started because Jake [Layman] had a thigh bruise. He didn’t practice and we’ve got a rule that if you don’t practice, you don’t start. I thought Roddy played better as the game went on.”

On forward Jake Layman:

“I think with Jake it’s all confidence. Late in the year, he was pretty good. This is another level. I told our guys after Connecticut; Jake’s got to get more shots. Now Connecticut made sure they had someone on him. They came down on the break and had guys running at him. We’ve got to do a better job of getting Jake more shots and I thought we did that tonight. He made them. He got his legs underneath in the second half and knocked them down.”

Sophomore guard Jake Layman

On the change between first half and second half:

“It was kind of frustrating in the first half because we know we can play a lot better than that and that is something that we need to work on.”

Thoughts about being out of sync:

“It was our energy. We knew in the second half we needed energy.”

How the Terps felt about playing ACU beforehand:

“I think we had two good days of practice. Practice was not the issue. I think the start of the game was just so bad and we didn’t know what to do when we were down. We just need to pick it up.”

Sophomore forward Charles Mitchell

On the start of the game:

“I feel like we came out flat the first half. We didn’t have a lot of energy, but in the second half we came back and they didn’t score after the 14 [minute] mark.”

On taking pride from being the guy that comes off the bench and brings energy:

“Whatever I can do from my team, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not really worried about who starts or who plays the most minutes. I’m going to value the minutes I get and play hard.”

On what inspired the change from the first half to the second half:

“The halftime speech. Just saying we came out flat, we have to give more, we are a better team, we just have to go out here a prove it.”

ACU HEAD COACH JOE GOLDING

On tonight’s game:

“I thought we did a good job until that stretch in the last 12 minutes of the game. We turned it over, which allowed them to get through.”

On shooting:

“We had long possessions and then hit some shots, but if you don’t hit those shots it doesn’t work. We’ve got some guys that can really shoot the basketball, so we wanted to space the floor.”

On differences in size:

“We thought we were a little quicker because of their size; they’re so big. We had some mismatches in our favor. But obviously on the other hand, you see they outscored us 45-12 in the paint.”

On the road trip (at Duquesne 11/9, at St. Bonaventure 11/11):

“We’ve been down here a week, it’s been a long trip. I think on this trip we’ve gotten better. We fatigued some, but I give coach Turgeon credit. I told Coach [Brette] Tanner that they were 11 percent [1-for-9] for 3-pointers, so I knew coach Turgeon knows what he’s doing and they sort of powered that thing inside. There was nothing we could do about it. We knew as soon as they started to do that, we were in trouble.”

On being in a large arena:

“I thought our guys competed. And it was our first time in a big arena like this. Each game [on this road trip] our competition went up. Each arena got bigger and louder. And then [on] TV. We were scared to death. If you guys would have seen us yesterday in the bus we were all taking pictures. Hopefully in a couple years we won’t do that. We’ll be used to it.”